ARTICLE: The Smacks Tour

The Smacks Tour, January 30, 2004, (by Timid)

So Mr. Len’s Smacks Tour rolls into town and pushes back the date of the event I was performing at by one week. Fuckah! But it’s all good though. The all too familiar Beta Bar in Tallahassee was host to Mr. Len and his Dummy Smacks label artists Roosevelt Franklin (Mr. Len and Kimani Rogers of The Masterminds / Third Earth Music) and recent signee’s Bully Mouth. Kice… of Course was supposed to also be in the house but wasn’t able to make the show. Damn, shafted again. Maybe Len has something against me.

As is the norm at a Beta Bar hip hop event, the crowd was slim. Promotion Promotion Promotion. Even with the Olive Oil-esque audience size the performers pushed on! Such brave souls are they.

Opening for the Tallahassee stop for the tour was an unknown group called Mad Happy out of Pensacola by way of New York. Interesting to say the least. A boyfriend/girlfriend team bringing a somewhat eyebrow raising type of sound. It’s hard being the unknown opening act. I missed about half of their set as I was outside kickin’ the chilly whoop whoop with Mr. Len and Kimani Rogers.

Mr. Len’s new breed, Bully Mouth followed up the openers adding to another performance on their first tour. These guys have a nice thing happening and after checking out the three cut single they quarterback sneaked to me their full album might be one you want to check out.

Now the promotional info says Len was doing his Class-X set and after an explanation of what that is from the man himself I still wasn’t sure what the hell that meant. But! At this very moment it has dawned on me the meaning of Class-X. Aside from it being the title of his most recent album on his own label it’s also a tribute to Company Flow. At this very moment the light has just shined on a uncharacteristically dim Timid (been around altrap too long) and I realize that Class-X is a negroidial colloquialism for Classics. Class-X – Classics; get it? That darn infectious Hip Hop creativity is gonna rule the world one day.

In any case, Len and Kimani teamed up and brought Roosevelt Franklin to life on stage. The two mixed smart ass wit, crowd interaction and an odd obsession with MTV’s Kurt Loder (seek professional help) with Kimani on the mic and Len on the tables to good effect.

All in all not a bad show at all. I think they’ve pretty much wrapped up the east coast side of the tour and are about to take on the midwest and west coast. You can peep the remaining dates of the tour at DummySmacks.com.

DJ Slim Chance, Mr. Len and DJ Dirty Digits cutting it up after the show.